Surfacing

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Surfacing

By Lisa M. Zaran

She bought into the hype
that states, nothing tastes
as good as thin feels.
Proving on this she decided
nothing tastes worth eating.

So she didn't or when she did
rectified it by pointing a finger
at the back of her throat.

She equated thinness with beauty
and so, when the flesh of her face
began falling away so the skin grew
taut, it's beauty stretched thin like
canvas over bone

and when her collarbones began
resembling the sinking part of an
anchor, she thought these good
things, steps in her right direction.

Blind to everyone and everything
except her own reflection she never
noticed the wide-eyed stares from
strangers or the gaping mouths
of her family members. She thought
nobody was looking.

As her weight went down her symptoms
increased. Hair loss, sallow skin, the last
of her menstrual cycles. Growing smaller
she also grew tired and began napping
at all hours, dreaming herself a lithe mermaid,

the pounds skimming off her frame
like silver finned fish before bellying away.
Her parents never surrendered or rendered
her hopeless, force feeding her spoonfuls
of their aching hearts, but, they did agree
that she was drowning and pinned their
hopes on the myth that even a body whose
drowned, surely, must surface again.